Inside Apple’s biggest gamble: What India can learn from Apple in China

In Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, journalist Patrick McGee, who led Apple coverage at the Financial Times, traces that entanglement across three decades. McGee opened up about what he learned reporting this story and what Indian founders can take away as they scale globally.

From Silicon Valley to Shenzhen

When Apple began consolidating its manufacturing in China in the early 2000s, the decision looked purely operational. It was about efficiency, not ideology. But as McGee points out, “Every product manager, every independent project team would choose China because it was the only country that could meet demands of quality, scale, and cost simultaneously.”

That logic powered Apple’s historic growth but also made it vulnerable.

“Apple trained 30 million workers and spent probably more than $800 billion building up China’s capability. If you look back now, every decision Apple made over the last 25 years was rational. But those rational choices have put Washington in a tough spot,” he added.

The invisible supply chain

For years, Apple’s mastery of its supply chain was hailed as genius. Yet McGee’s reporting reveals a quieter truth: that control came at a political cost.

“When Beijing asked Apple to remove the New York Times app or more than 600 VPNs, they did it,” McGee said. “They had no counterweight. If they had 60% of their production in India, they could have pushed back. But they can’t, and Beijing knows that.”

At the peak of the Hong Kong protests, Apple even pulled an app that helped demonstrators coordinate movements. “That was Apple siding with an authoritarian regime against people exercising democratic rights,” McGee reflected.

As he puts it: “Supply chains are the nervous system of capitalism. But most people’s eyes glaze over when you talk about them.”

Can India replicate the Shenzhen Effect?

India’s manufacturing story is just beginning, and McGee believes the ambition is real, but so are the gaps.

“India has labour rates comparable to China 20 years ago and over a billion people. But the differences are profound, and the similarities are superficial.”

He argues that India must study how China industrialised, not merely what it built.

“You’ll learn far more from studying Shenzhen as an experimental economic zone than from studying the U.K.’s Industrial Revolution,” he said. “China created multiple zones, allowed experiments, rewarded local officials for growth, and even turned a blind eye to rapid urban migration when it fuelled productivity.”

The policy flexibility plus entrepreneurial urgency created the Shenzhen effect: a dense, self-reinforcing ecosystem where every supplier, toolmaker, and assembler was a short drive away.

So, when Apple executives claim that 20% of iPhones are now “made in India,” McGee denies the statement.

“That’s tariff math, not manufacturing reality. They’re assembled in India, but the parts still come from China. Real manufacturing is maybe 1 or 2%. The effort required to close that gap is monumental.”

The China+1 strategy for India 

McGee believes India stands at a generational turning point, “if Apple invests deeply in India,” he said, “it won’t just train one supplier, it will train an entire generation. That’s what happened in China twenty-five years ago.”

But he also warns that China will not stand still. “China doesn’t want India to become a manufacturing rival,” he said. “If they need to restrict machinery exports or prevent experienced workers from moving to Indian lines, they’ll do it, and they already are.”

McGee asserts that this can only come from state-level leadership.

“It’s not ‘India’ as one giant country that will make this work,” he explained. “It’s Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and other local governments that will have to reframe how Western companies view India as a manufacturing base.”

What Apple built in China took decades of alignment between vision, policy, and persistence. India’s journey will demand the same patience and its own version of discipline. That’s not impossible, but it is difficult. As McGee puts it, the real question isn’t whether India can make iPhones, it’s whether it can build the ecosystem that makes that sustainable. The answer will decide not just India’s role in Apple’s supply chain, but its place in the next era of global manufacturing.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction

01:11 – Why Patrick Wrote Apple in China

03:33 – How Apple Ended Up in China

06:25 – Researching the Untold Story

08:21 – The Three Phases of Apple in China

11:03 – Lessons for Founders on Supply Chains

12:26 – The ‘Siren Song’ of China

13:13 – Apple’s Moral Dilemmas and Trade-offs

16:27 – Innovation, Arrogance & Plateau

19:04 – The Economics of Dependence

22:27 – What Can India Learn from China?

23:53 – Why Does Apple Need India?

25:45 – Are iPhones Made in India?

26:55 – The Future of Globalisation & Supply Chains

31:31 – Why Should You Read Apple in China